Chapter 122

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Sunday 20/10/92

Dear Spencer

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I hope this gets to you before the 28th, and that you managed to resist opening your present until your birthday, not that it really matters you couldn't have harmed anything in it, I just wanted to be able to explain it first. I sent it super early because I've heard packages take a lot longer to send overseas.

I hope you like it. It was the least magical looking bag they had and I think it will fit in in the nonmagical world okay even if it might look a bit old fashioned. 'For some reason the backpacks they had were all much smaller and while they still hold ten times as much as a normal backpack that size you'd have to be a lot more careful not to accidently draw attention that it's got more stuff in it than it should. The bag is made of leather not dragonhide which reduces how many enchantments can be put on it but dragonhide is too obviously magical or not normal and this leather is from a magical creature not a cow and the inside of the leather is covered in runes. The bag has a 100-year guarantee on wear and tear, including the buckles and the strap, it will never weigh more than 3 pounds and can hold about ten times as many things as its size would normally suggest so you will probably manage to fit about a week's worth of reading in it. The limitation it does have is that each individual item needs to fit in through the top of the bag, you couldn't for example keep a sleeping bag or a tent or bulky coat in it. If you open the bag, you'll see there are compartments on the inside of each side, if you put a drop of your blood in the vial, you'll find in one of them and then put a drop from the vial on the fastening of each side pocket then you and I will be the only people who will be able to see the compartments and get things out of them. The man who made it assured me it would work for you as long as one of the blood donors was a wizard. You can do it to one of the pockets or to both of them. The vial I gave you should last a year so if you do one pocket now and then want to do the other one later, after that, let me know and I'll send you some more. I don't need to tell you to be careful not to keep anything in them that you might need someone else to get for you in an emergency. Even the stuff in the main part of the bag that others can see is protected. Nobody will be able to even think about going through your bag if they're looking to steal something or to prank you by taking something or leaving something in it. The pocket with the ice-cream tubs in it has a stasis charm on it, you'll be able to keep food in it fresh for about a year or two, and as you can see things in there won't be squashed or shaken up when you use the bag, but you need to at least use the blood ward on that one if you're going to keep food like that in it so people don't notice the stasis charm. I'm sorry that I didn't have an opportunity to bake you a birthday cake, but I put in a piece of chocolate cake from the opening feast, and the ice-cream I bought from Florean Forescue's Ice Cream Parlour, they're magical ice-cream flavours so you can't share them unfortunately but you can take one out and eat some and put it back in your bag. Don't worry, you can keep regular ice-cream in there without it melting as well, I just thought you'd like to try some of the magical flavours. You can also put sandwiches in there to stop them going soggy or hot things in there to keep them hot but the owner of the luggage shop recommended not to have hot things and icy things in there at the same time because the charm's not as robust as the one they use on trunks and cupboards. The jam donut icecream is an exception, it has it's own magic to keep it hot and frozen at the same time.

Do not put anything electronic into the pocket that keeps food fresh, in fact even putting it into the other secret pocket might make electronics play up a bit, I'm not even sure how a radio or Walkman would work if you put it in the bag while it was turned on. Whether it would damage the Walkman or just flatten the batteries. I guess it isn't such a great bag for the nonmagical world, particularly the way electronics are becoming more and more widely used and portable. I'm sorry about that.

I brought it from the luggage shop on Diagon Alley while we were shopping for school supplies, Ron and Hermione and Mrs Granger followed me of course which I didn't worry too much about. Like I told you I thought that Hermione needed a bag like this and I kind of hoped she'd take the hint and buy one since I still don't think that she's a real enough friend for me to spend that much money on. I was surprised that she didn't but I thought she'd probably spent all her money buying extra books since she wouldn't let me run any extra errands until we had all our school things so we'd already been to Flourish and Blotts bookshop and she came out with a huge pile more books than I did. Mrs Granger seemed really interested and I wondered if she planned to come back and buy one for Hermione's birthday in September.

The problem was her mother didn't buy one for her and Hermione seemed really disappointed and angry with me when I gave her a book for her birthday. I think she thought that I'd bought the book satchel for her and all my questions about how to key the side pockets so a muggle could see them while they were hidden from everyone else not keyed into the bags enchantments were information so she could key in her parents. Come to think about it she was cross with me for asking those questions when we were at the bag shop too. I thought she was just uneasy about being identified as someone who has muggle friends or family but if she thought the bag was for her she might not have wanted her mother to realise that there were extra compartments she couldn't see into or was afraid her mother would insist on being added to the wards on those compartments so she could keep an eye on what Hermione had in there. I'm sorry she was so disappointed but she couldn't honestly have expected me to spend that much money on her present when she bought me an appointment diary/homework planner, which of course I didn't get until Dobby gave back my mail.

Please don't worry about the cost, the satchel cost too much to spend on a false friend but it was well within my budget of spending money for the year and it was a reasonable price to spend on a gift for a real friend, your friendship is a treasure beyond price. I wanted to buy you something special that you would be able to use that would make your life just a little bit easier every day for years to come. I hope you like it.

Your friend always

Harry

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.

Please stay safe everyone.